Showing posts with label coronavirus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coronavirus. Show all posts

Monday, March 15, 2021

March, 2021, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: Biden Creates A Humanitarian Disaster At The Border, Biden Cares More About Illegal Immigrants Than Americans In Need and Biden's Handlers Keep Him On A Short Leash

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

1) One trait of the of the American political class that we find happening over and over and what is disgusting is that these people care more about foreigners than they do about Americans. With millions of Americans homeless, hungry, drug addicted or having lost their job recently, American politicians would rather spend billions and billions of dollars overseas for other purposes or joyfully and expensively welcome illegal immigrants while ignoring needy Americans.

This trait is now bubbling up again as we see that thousands and thousand of illegal immigrants are heading for our southern border. Even though Trump had gotten the floods of illegal immigrants under control and had restored the rule of law when it comes to immigration, within weeks of becoming President, Biden has caused the old problems to arise again with a vengeance.

What is fascinating about Biden's failure in this matter is the reality that thousands of people assaulting our southern are all wearing identical Joe Biden shirts that read: “Please Let Us In.” Now I doubt that every one of these people went onto the Internet and decided to buy the identical shirt. There can be no other conclusion other than there is a sustained, organized and well financed plan to undermine our border security. How else do thousands of poor illegal immigrants get the same, identical shirt within weeks of Biden taking office?

It now looks like intentionally or unintentionally Biden is supporting the overrunning of our border for the gains of unknown people behind the scenes who are financing this illegal immigrant surge at the expense of American citizens’ safety and the sovereignty of our country.

2) Furthermore, not only are there forces at work here to undermine our democracy but the living and inhumane conditions at the border for everyone involved , both citizens and illegal immigrants alike, is not good:
  • Even Democrats are scared about the crisis Biden has caused on our southern border.
  • Democrat Congressman Henry Cueller, as reported by Axios, is scared about what Biden has unleashed on the border: “The Biden administration is easing up too much on unauthorized immigrants, citing their impact on his constituents, local hospitals and their potential to spread the coronavirus.”
  • It is actually refreshing to have a Washington politician such as Cueller care more about his American constituents than illegal immigrants from around the world, unlike Biden and the rest of Washington.
  • He is also correctly worried about the resurgence of smugglers coming back to life at the border, both human smugglers and drug smugglers.
  • Another Congressional Democrat, Vicente Gonzalez, is also showing some rare concern for his constituents: “Well, my concern at this in the recent weeks in my district, migrants who made it across the border, who even pass the line of MPPs [Migrant Protection Protocols], who were 5,000 folks that have been waiting for two years across the border, made it across the Rio Grande Valley, were processed and released. If that is the message that we send to Central America and around the world, I can assure you, it won’t be long before we have tens of thousands of people showing up to our border. And it’ll be catastrophic for our party, for our country, for my region, for my district, in the middle of a pandemic, in an area where we’ve lost over 3,000 people in my small congressional district. So, I think we need to have a better plan in place. I think asylum seekers should be able to ask for asylum and be processed in their home country or a neighboring country. And we shouldn’t have a policy in place that impulses people to make this 2,000 mile trek where cartels and human traffickers are enriching themselves.
In the midst of this crisis that Biden and others have created, it is refreshing to see actual Democrats in Washington care more about Americans than foreigners. Now, their concern may be a little selfish in that as conditions of the virus, crime, drug smugglers, etc. have a larger and larger negative impact on their voters, they may be worried they could lose their precious Congressional seat. But if this fear makes them do the right thing for their voters, then that is a good thing. Biden is certainly not doing the right thing for their voters.

3) It has always been our contention that Joe Biden is in a significant state of cognitive decline and that it was pure elder abuse that his family and party subjected him to both the rigors of a Presidential campaign and the office of the Presidency, the most stressful job in the world. He is unable to put together more than a brief coherent discussion or debate and the country is in serious danger because of his declining mental state.

He has gone almost two months without having a formal press conference, something that is unheard of in Presidential politics. Specifically, he is the first president in at least the past 100 years not to have a formal press conference in the first 33 days of being sworn in.

He cancelled his first state of the union message. His handlers, and that's all they are, apparently realize that he is not competent enough to answer questions in a press conference or coherently stand up in front of the nation and deliver any sort of message or speech.

One of his handlers is his press secretary, Jen Psaki. She put forth one of the most inane excuses ever, even for Washington, when pressed on why Biden hasn't had a formal press conference. Reuters correspondent Alex Alper recently asked her why Biden had not had a formal press conference yet: “So we’re 45 days into the Biden presidency and he has yet to hold a presser. At this point in past presidencies, every president from Reagan had addressed reporters, some of them multiple times. So why the delay and when can we expect the president to hold a press conference?”

To which Psaki anemically and comically responded: “Well first, as all you know, the president takes questions several times a week. He took questions actually twice yesterday, which is an opportunity for the people covering the White House to ask them about whatever news is happening on any given day. We look forward to holding a full press conference in the coming weeks before the end of the month. And we’re working on setting a final date for that. And as soon as we do, we will let you all know, but this president came in during a historic crisis, two historic crises, a pandemic like the country had not seen in decades and decades and an economic downturn that left 10 million people out of work. So I think the American people would certainly understand if his focus and his energy and his attention has been on ensuring we secure enough vaccines to vaccinate all Americans, which we will do by the end of May, and then pushing for a rescue plan that will provide direct checks to almost 160 million Americans.”

Such nonsense on so many levels:
  • First of all, randomly answering a few questions tossed to him here and there without much opportunity for follow up questions is not anywhere close to being an equivalent to a press conference.
  • Trump, who faced the same two crises, had daily and then regular press conferences during his years in office and during the pandemic crisis to keep Americans informed and provide leadership in the crisis.
  • Democratic governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, held a daily press conference while dealing with the pandemic and the resultant high unemployment, just like Trump.
  • In fact, Cuomo received a daytime Emmy award for having regular press conferences in the middle of the pandemic.
  • FDR, in the middle of the Depression, World War II, held his famous “fireside chats” to continually inform Americans what was going on relative to the Depression and war effort.
Leaders lead and that involves being out in front of voters and citizens and telling them what is going on and answer the tough questions that need to be asked in a crisis. FDR did it, Trump did, Cuomo did it, even Obama did it relative to the Great Recession when he came into office.

But Biden, no, his handlers know what would happen if he got up in front of an unscripted press conference or tried to deliver a major state of the union speech. The country, the world would realize that he is not capable of being the leader of this country or the free world.

And that is such a sad commentary on how broken our current political processes are. A gentleman in severe mental and cognitive decline somehow got elected President. We still maintain that this is a form of elder abuse that no person in their struggling twilight years should be made to endure.

That will do it for today: Biden is ducking his leadership responsibilities as President, Biden has caused a sovereignty, law and order, and humanitarian crisis at the border, and politicians care more about illegal immigrants than the welfare and needs of Americans.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


Wednesday, February 3, 2021

February, Part 3, Political Class Insanity: Experts Abandon Cuomo, The Government Loses 20 Million Vaccine Doses, And "Biden Lies" Is Trending

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

1) It should come as no surprise to readers of this blog that we have very little respect for the abilities or humanity of New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo. First, he forced unprepared nursing homes in the state to take in elderly covid patients and mingle them with healthy elderly nursing home patients that resulted in thousands of unnecessary deaths. 

He then under counted the number of fatalities that occurred in New York nursing homes to make himself look better than his performance. Finally, despite a ten month advanced planning window, he put no effective vaccine distribution plans in place for the covid vaccine and as a result, about 40% of the vaccines that were shipped to New York state had to be junked because they exceeded their expiration date. 

He then proceeded to blame everyone else but himself for his myriad of failures. Also, in the midst of the crisis, he spent time writing a book that praised himself for his leadership in the crisis rather than devote all of his energy to actually protecting state residents’ health.

Well, according to the National Review, even his trained health experts had problems with him:
  • According to an article by Mairead Mcardle, at least nine senior health officials with the New York Health Department have resigned because of his incompetence since the beginning of the pandemic.
  • These folks included the deputy commissioner of public health, Dr., Isaac Weisfuse, so these were not low ranking worker bees.
  • Other departures included the director of the bureau of communicable disease control, the medical director for epidemiology, and a state epidemiologist.
  • Much of the reason for the resignations was the conflict with the governor who insisted on using untested and untried ways of distributing the covid vaccine, i.e. using large hospital systems, vs. using already proven and in place existing vaccine distribution processes.
  • Given the failure to distribute the vaccine efficiently in the state, it is now obvious that Cuomo was wrong and the experts were right.
  • Dr. Weisfuse was pretty blunt about Cuomo’s failed plan: “The governor’s approach in the beginning seemed to go against the grain in terms of what the philosophy was about how to do this. It did seem to negate 15 to 20 years of work.”
  • And yet Cuomo was adamant that he was somehow right, publicly insisting that he did not trust the experts in the health department despite his failed approach.
About 43,000 people have died in New York after being infected with the coronavirus, the largest death toll of any state. New York has less than 6% of the U.S. population but almost 10% of the total national covid deaths. Thus, the death rate in the state is about 63% higher than what would be expected based on population, indicating a massively botched job of protecting the health of the citizens of the state.

It continues to amaze how many times an American politician can fail so dramatically, still keep their job, and still try to convince us they were great in performing their tasks.

2) Despite being questioned any number of times, the Biden administration spokespeople have refused to answer questions about how many vaccines are available. But according to a recent Politico report, we now may know why no one is talking:
  • According to Politico: “Biden’s team is still trying to locate upwards of 20 million vaccine doses that have been sent to states — a mystery that has hampered plans to speed up the national vaccination effort.”
  • How does one lose 20 million of anything?
  • Despite having ten months to put plans in place to track the vaccine doses as they were distributed, it appears that once the vaccine doses are shipped to the states, no one knows where they went, how many were distributed, how many were left, etc.
  • One Biden official is quoted as saying, “It’s a mess.”
So they are throwing out expired vaccines in New York and they have no idea where millions of vaccines are physically located now. The Biden guy is right, what a mess.

Note: pure conjecture, but it wouldn't surprise me, based on no information but knowing how corrupt government can be, that millions of those doses were somehow sidetracked to criminal elements that are reselling them somewhere in the world for a handsome profit. And by criminal elements that could include government employees or their connections. Again, simply a thought but one that should not be ruled out.

3) It is fun sometimes when politicians eat their own even if taxpayers and citizens get screwed in the process. During campaigning, Biden promised that if elected he would get $2,000 economic stimulus checks out to everyone in the country. In the meantime, Trump was able to get Congress to agree to $600 stimulus checks which have been distributed.

Well, Biden did the math and said he only now had to get out $1,400 stimulus checks out since Trump sent out $600 checks which reduced Biden’s $2,000 campaign promise down to $1,400. Which is when it gets interesting:
  • There is actually a Twitter hashtag out there called #Bidenlied regarding this issue.
  • This is the Biden statement that has many people up in anger and why they think he lied: “$600 is simply not enough when you have to choose between paying rent or putting food on the table. We need $2,000 stimulus checks.”
  • PodcastHost Rtan Knight had this reaction: “$2000 is not $1400. So @JoeBiden is either a liar or really bad at math. I am going with LIAR.”
  • Another social media comment: “#BidenLied and the whole government lied. Don’t say your given us $2000 checks when your really given us $1400 checks. That’s just cold, bruh.”
  • Another reaction: “#BidenLied By the time the stimulus package arrives it’ll be more like 600 bucks instead of the 2000 we were promised but don’t worry, Jill Biden is going to hand out cookies later.” 
  • Another: “Liberals are more enraged that #BidenLied is trending than they are that half a million Americans are dead, millions more are threatened w/ eviction, tens of millions have no access to vaccine now.” 
  • Knight came back with another comment: “Nobody should be surprised that @JoeBiden lied about $2000 checks. He lied the entire primary, but liberals were too busy chanting ‘Trump bad’ to even care that they were nominating a pathological liar. #BidenLied.” 
Love it when political types eat their own. But maybe the voters who claimed Trump was a pathological liar will eventually wake up and realize that Biden is also a pathological liar, something we have pointed out many times (e.g. he DID NOT get arrested with Nelson Mandela, he DID NOT go to a predominantly black college, etc.). Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

3) The thing that nobody in the political class seems to care about, whether it is $1,400 or $2,000, is where is this money coming from? This is not going to be funded out of current revenue streams, it is going to have to be financed by adding more debt to the Federal government’s national debt load which is eventually going to have to be paid by future taxpayers, our kids and our grandkids. It is like politicians think that wealth can just be printed up and distributed, no big deal. 

But, as the following post discussed a little while ago, the country is on track to experience hyperinflation and eventual financial collapse as American politicians pile on the debt without regard to basic and dire economic consequences:


That will do it for today’s political class insanity: Cuomo is still a failure and his experts know it, politicians and the government entities they rule over have no planning skills at all, and the coming financial collapse is being accelerated by something called “economic stimulus checks” which create money out of thin air.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


Wednesday, October 21, 2020

October, 2020, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: Bad Political Priorities In California, Democrats Corner the Market On High Murder Rate Cities, and the California Financial Death Spiral Continues

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

1) We have often and recently pointed out what a terrible place California is becoming:
  • The unfunded liabilities of the state government is skyrocketing.
  • The state and local tax levels are among the highest in the country.
  • There is a massive homelessness problem throughout the state.
  • Out migration of state residents heading out of state to other places to live is among the highest in the country.
  • The state has one of the highest poverty levels in the country.
  • The state’s public schools generally do a horrible job educating the kids in the state.
  • Faulty state government emphasis on renewable energy sources has resulted in regularly occurring rolling blackouts of electricity and electric rates that are, on average, 55% higher than the rest of the country.
  • Wild fires have burned out millions of acres in the state because of stupid government regulations on forest management.
  • The state’s physical infrastructure is collapsing.
  • The state, like every other state, has been fighting the coronavirus for months.
Given these dire problems facing the state's residents, one would have thought that the state’s governor and other politicians would be laser focused on addressing and resolving these issues. But alas, you hopes would be wrong:
  • From the beginning of time, California prison inmates were separately based on their birth gender, males and females.
  • But the state politicians decided to work on and actually enact legislation that will allow prison inmates to choose their gender and it does not have to be just male or female, it can be transgender, intersex, or nonbinary.
  • After they decide, what out of a multitude of genders they want to be, the state will separate the prisoners via their announced gender which, again, is not restricted to male and female.
  • The law also requires prisoners to be called by their preferred pronouns, which again, is not restricted to simply he or she.
  • Despite state government budget shortages, this law will obviously require money be spent to build facilities for more sex designations.
High taxes, unfunded government liabilities, forest fires everywhere, high crime, low educational system performance, etc. and these state politicians spend time, energy and resources on a prisoner gender identity bill.

2) I could have included the following discussion in one of our “by the numbers” posts but lets do it here:
  • We have always viewed every segment of the American political class as being inhabited by people that are not that smart, brave, or effective in doing their jobs.
  • Democratic Congressman Hank Johnson once worried that the island of Guam could tip over in the Pacific Ocean, Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee thinks the Constitution is over 400 years old and that two distinct Vietnams still exist with North Vietnam ruling South Vietnam, and Democratic Congresswoman Alexnadria Ocasio-Cortez who provides a never ending array of ignorance.
  • But when it comes to being safe in a city, it is pretty clear that you probably do not want to be a city operated by the Democrats.
  • According to a New York Times report, 18 of the top 20 cities in the country, when it comes to homicides, are run by Democratic mayors.
  • The top 13 cities with the most homicides are run by Democrats.
  • Only Miami (#14) and Tulsa (#18) are among the top U.S. cities not run by Democrats when it comes to murder rates.
Correlation is not causation (i.e. having a Democratic mayor results in a high murder rate city) but it may be a good thing to avoid cities run by Democrats if you want to stay alive, the numbers don't lie.

3) We recently talked about how famous podcaster Joe Rogan was leaving high tax California and taking his operation to low tax Texas. Mr. Rogan has recently signed a $100 million deal and by moving out of Los Angeles to Texas he immediately saves about $13 million, the amount he would have paid in California state income taxes since the state of Texas doesn't have a state income tax.

We have often discussed the reality that hard working, tax paying state residents are fleeing high tax states for lower tax states with Mr Rogan probably being the most prominent person to do so. But we know that moving companies cannot get their hands on enough moving to satisfy the out migration of NYC residents out of the city. 

I believe it is a basic human drive to want to live as free as possible. But when the state’s politicians start taking more and more of your hard earned wages and offering very little in return, people decide that economic freedom from high taxation requires them to take action to preserve whatever economic freedom they can garner.

Ben Shapiro is a famous conservative commentator and pundit. He recently announced that he is also leaving his home state of California, mostly driven by the higher and higher levels of taxation with little incremental benefit in return. He described the reason why in a recent article on his website:
  • Mr. Shapiro is a true Californian, having lived there most of his life.
  • He was born in Burbank, California, went to college in Los Angeles at UCLA, founded his media company in the state, met his wife in the state, and his three kids were born in the state.
  • He believes California is the most beautiful state in the union, the state climate is great, the scenery is breathtaking, and there is so much to do.
  • And yet he is moving his family and business out of the state.
  • Some of his reasons include: “We’re leaving because all the benefits of California have steadily eroded — and then suddenly collapsed. Meanwhile, all the costs of California have steadily increased — and then suddenly skyrocketed.”
  • Like we have said about California (and Illinois, New York and New Jersey) the financial death spiral has started, which is what Mr. Shapiro describes using a medical analogy: “It can be difficult to spot the incremental encroachment of a terrible disease, but once the final ravages set in, it becomes obvious that the illness is fatal. So, too, with California, where bad governance has turned a would-be paradise into a burgeoning dystopia.”
  • He points out that the homeless population in Los Angeles County alone has gone from less than 40,000 in 2011 to 66,000 today, an over 50% increase.
  • This has resulted in homeless encampments and resultant trash in every neighborhood in the county.
  • But homelessness is not the only quality of life issue: “The most beautiful areas of Los Angeles, from Santa Monica beach to my suburb, have become wrecks. My children have personally witnessed drug use, public urination and public nudity. Looters were allowed free reign in the middle of the city during the Black Lives Matter riots; Rodeo Drive was closed at 1 p.m., and citizens were curfewed at 6 p.m.”
  • As crime has gone up the funding for police forces has gone down.
  • He also points out the same reason why Mr. Rogan left: the top state income tax rate is 13.3% and the state politicians want to raise that retroactively to 16.8%.
  • The state also has a 7.5% sales tax and high gas taxes.
  • According to a survey of 650 business CEOs, California is the worst state in the union to do business.
  • Out migration has risen for the past seven years as people flee the ill run state which taxes high and provides low quality government services in return.
  • And finally: “I want my kids to grow up safe. I want them to grow up in a community with a future, with more freedom and safety than I grew up with. California makes that impossible. So, goodbye, Golden State. Thanks for the memories.”
This is what happens when the political class gets too big, too greedy, and proves that they have neither the brainpower, the courage, or wisdom to operate oversized, malfunctioning government operations. People want to be free and when that becomes too much of a hassle or impossible where they live, they move, be it out of California, or out of NYC, be it rich or middle class, people want to be free.

California, Illinois, New York and New Jersey are the canaries in the mine. They have started their descent into a financial and quality of life death spiral. Learn from them or we all will be living the nightmare that is California: high taxes, low quality government services, loss of freedom, high crime, bad schools, poverty and homelessness, and violence, etc.

So, we have bad priorities in a distressed state, California, it looks like Democrats operate the top murder cities in the country, and the famous and not so famous continue to abandon the sinking ship that is California.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:



Sunday, September 13, 2020

September, 2020, Part 7,Political Class Insanity: De Blasio Puts NYC Into A Financial Death Spiral, Gretchen Builds a Wall To Protect Herself, and Biden Messes Up Again

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

1) Gretchen Whitmer is the governor of Michigan. She was probably the second worst performing politician/governor relative to the coronavirus behind the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo. We have previously gone into her many screw ups and will not repeat them here but she made herself look foolish, inept, and petty so many times.

And her poor performance continues along those same lines in a completely different area:
  • Apparently, Michigan taxpayers are putting out over $1 million so that the governor can build a security wall and security system around the governor’s mansion where she currently resides.
  • The fence will be 8 feet high and the cost of the fence and enhanced security for the governor and her family will be about $1.1 million.
  • This is the same lady that chastised Trump for building a wall along the southern border with Mexico to keep out drug cartels, human traffickers and other undesirables in order to better protect the lives and property of American citizens 
  • But she has no problem using additional taxpayer money to protect herself and her family.
  • And not only is the wall 8 feet high but according to news reports, there is a sign already in place that claims, “Danger. High Voltage. Unauthorized persons keep out.”
The governor is not beyond spending taxpayer wealth to better protect her family and property but gets all upset if Trump does the same thing. The hypocrisy is amazing. She gets even more protected, the residents in her state’s cities and towns can fend for themselves.

This is shades of what the mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, did for herself and her family. She used the taxpayer funded Chicago police force to ensure that violent protests and riots did not occur in her neighborhood and endanger her family. The other families in the city’s other neighborhoods did not get the same police support.

Another form of politicians favorite hypocrisy, “do as I say, not as I do.” You common folk go put up with criminals, rioters, etc. will use taxpayer money to at least ensure that I am safe, So sad and pathetic.

2) We have purposely tried to not talk about the upcoming Presidential election, it is tiring and depressing. But as a trained statistician, I could not pass up on a recent Biden screw up when it comes to numbers and how either he is so misinformed or more likely, his cognitive abilities continue to decline dramatically, making coherent sentences and concepts too difficult for him:
  • At a recent political campaign stop, Biden asserted that 6,114 U.S. military personnel had died from the coronavirus.
  • Unfortunately, his assertion was a little off...by 6,107 deaths.
  • Only 7 armed forces personnel have died from the virus according to a Pentagon website, no 6.114.
  • He also grossly overstated the number of armed forces personnel who contracted the virus by a whopping 79,000.
  • His campaign tried to say that he had confused the number of deaths and infections in Michigan with the number of deaths and infections within the armed forces but even those numbers don't match.
Bottom line, he screwed up royally, much like he has done during the whole campaign, bringing into question both his integrity when it comes to numbers and/or his ability to think clearly. If he cannot get two numbers right at a campaign stop, who really thinks that he has the cognitive ability to be President?

3) We have recently and often discussed the reality that Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York City, is one of several American mayors that should be considered the worst mayor in the country. In fact, a fellow New York Democrat recently called de Blasio not only the worst NYC mayor ever but the worst mayor in the history of the country, all cities and all towns included.

He has alienated and insulted the New York Police Department any number of times during his term. He has reduced the police budget by an amazing $1 billion at the same time that violence, murders, shootings, and crime is skyrocketing in his city. Moving companies cannot find enough moving vans to satisfy the demand for NYC resident leaving the city due to the increased crime and higher and higher taxes.

A recent article on the Townhall website by Daniel J.Mitchell laid out how the city is in the beginning of a financial death spiral:
  • According to the article, the city has a massive spending problem that results in higher and higher taxes to feed the higher and higher spending which eventually drives people to relocate out of the city.
  • Things are so out of control that even the leftist New York Times believes that only fiscal constraint will fix what ails the city.
  • The city currently has a $5 billion budget shortfall.
  • De Blasio has asked the state government to give him the authority to borrow billions of dollars to fill the budget shortfall but the wisdom of doing that is pretty shaky, i.e. incurring more debt to pay off existing debt/budget shortfalls.
  • Incurring debt to cover operating expenses eventually leads a city to collapse financially, e.g. Detroit.
  • And most of this budget issue is due to de Blasio since the city’s annual budget has grown from $73 billion in his first year in office in 2014 to a whopping $92 billion in 2019.
  • This spending increase of 26% is far higher than any measure of economic growth during those years.
  • And a lot of that growth in city expenses is because of the hiring of thousands of new city employees during that time frame, which means it is not going to be easy to trim payroll to close the budget hole especially if city unions have anything to say about it.
  • Unbelievably, even given the budget hole, the mayor has yet to implement a hard hiring freeze to slow down the financial bleeding.
  • But he still doesn't get it since he recently advocated for even HIGHER taxes which will cause the outward migration of NYC residents, especially the wealthier, higher paying tax ones, to leave the city even quicker.
  • And city companies are not ignorant in seeing how tenuous NYC financials are.
  • NYC financial giant JP Morgan is already locating some of its NYC employees to other locations, so much so that Texas will soon host more JP Morgan employees than NYC does.
  • As the wealthier residents leave cities like NYC, the politicians who refuse to cut spending have no choice but to raise taxes on middle class residents who cannot move out as easily as wealthier former residents can.
The financial death spiral for NYC is well underway. The question is not longer “if” but is now “how fast.” Higher taxes, higher crime levels, and no solution from the city’s political class is a deadly combination.

4) As I was finishing up the above description of how NYC was probably in a financial death spiral, another article verifying those concerns came to my attention:
  • A recent New York Times article by Emma Fitzsimmons and Dana Rubinstein discussed a recent open letter that 150 NYC business leaders had sent to de Blasio.
  • In that letter, “More than 150 business leaders in New York City joined together on Thursday to warn Mayor Bill de Blasio that he needed to take more decisive action to address crime and other quality-of-life issues that they said were jeopardizing the city’s economic recovery."
  • These companies included such long time NYC businesses such as Goldman Sachs, Jet Blue, Vornado Realty Trust and others.
  • The letter addressed issues such as crime, public safety, city cleanliness, homelessness, and so-called quality of life issues for their businesses and their employees.
  • The letter warned de Blasio that people who have temporarily left the city, employees who are now working at home because of the virus crisis and those that have moved out of the city would be slow to return because of concerns over “security and the livability of our communities.”
  • A response to the letter by the Mayor’s office encouraged business leaders to work with him and the city government to fix the many problems but provided no plans, no strategies, or suggestions how to fix what de Blasio has broken in the past six years.
  • Kathryn Wylde, the president of the Partnership for New York City, kind of summed up the business employee concerns quite nicely: “All these employers are committed to the city, they want to see economic recovery, but they’re getting pushback from their employees about, will the city be safe, will the city be clean.” 
  • Scott Rechler, CEO of RXR Realty, blamed de Blasio directly for the mess: “The problem right now is leadership. We need a strong leader to address these problems, to encourage people to feel comfortable coming back to the city,” with the obvious implication that the current mayor is not a strong leader.
  • Rather than come up with an action plan to fix the many problems, the only thing de Blasio could offer was a pathetic plea for business leaders to help him get extra debt borrowing authority from the state (see above why that is a stupid idea) and more Federal aid which Trump, and the rest of the country, is unlikely to agree to, no plan just plain crybaby whining.
  • On the same day of the letter, de Blasio’s sanitation commissioner, Kathryn Garcia, quit her job because of what she called “unconscionable” sanitation department budget cuts, not a good omen for the city’s cleanliness future.
  • Most business offices in the city are currently running below 10% capacity as businesses move out of the city or employees of businesses continue to work from home, another bad omen when it comes to city industries that once serviced those employees: cabs, restaurants, barbers, etc.
Not a pretty sight, but all of that is because ultra liberal/shadow communist de Blasio insisted on continually increasing the city budget beyond the city’s taxpayers ability to pay. If he had capped the increases to the annual city budget at say 3% back in 2014, he would roughly have saved the city about $5 billion, enough to close the current year budget shortfall. 

If he had capped the annual rise in the city budget at 2%, not an unreasonable target, he would have about $9 billion less in spending, more than enough to cover two years of budget deficits without raising taxes, incurring more debt, or pleading for more Federal help. A classic case of politicians only worrying about the next election, not the next generation, and as a result, that next generation will be faced with government debt, cuts in essential city services, and a lower quality of life.

So, we found out today that: de Blasio has likely put New York City into a financial death spiral, Joe Biden continues to be dazed and confused, and Governor Whitmer, like other politicians, is more concerned about her own safety than the safety and quality of life of her constituents.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:




Friday, September 11, 2020

September, 2020, Part 6, Political Class Insanity: Cuomo Lives In An Alternative Universal When It Comes To Virus Blame

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

We have often talked about the reality that New York City and New York state have led the country in coronavirus deaths and infections. The governor, Andrew Cuomo, probably unnecessarily killed hundreds, if not thousands. of elderly residents by forcing nursing homes in the state to accept virus patients into their facilities where the virus spread unimpeded. The NYC mayor, Bill de Blasio, was very cavalier early in the virus crisis by telling his residents to go out and party in enclosed quarters with others.

As a result, the number of New Yorkers killed or infected by the virus easily outpaced the deaths and infections of every other state no matter how you count. Whether you look at absolute numbers of deaths and infections or by population ratio, New York screwed up the most. Until very recently, more people in New York state died from the virus than the number of deaths in Texas, Florida, and California COMBINED. 

But in an example of one of the worst perceptions of reality, Cuomo recently blamed Donald Trump for the deaths and infections caused by the virus. He refuses to accept the reality that his screw ups short changed his residents' life and health. Specifically: “Donald Trump caused the COVID outbreak in New York,” then immediately said again, “Donald Trump caused the COVID outbreak in New York.”

Seriously, Trump caused the outbreak?! The Chinese lab that created the virus had nothing to do with it? The World Health Organization that screwed everything up early in the outbreak had nothing to do with it? Nancy Pelosi, who told everyone to go down to Chinatown and not worry about the virus, had nothing to do with it?

Hey governor, let’s review a recent Wall Street Journal article by Karl Rove that reviewed the adverse actions and quotations that you, de Blasio, Democrats, and other New York politicians and bureaucrats have put forth in the past six months:
  1. When Trump banned travel from China, the raging source of the virus, on January 31, Joe Biden accused Trump of being a racist even though the travel ban likely prevented infected Chinese people from coming into the country and spreading the disease even wider.
  2. Specifically Biden accused Trump of fear mongering and xenophobia.
  3. Ron Kain, a former chief of staff for Biden, also opposed the China ban, calling it premature on January 28.
  4. On January 30, Biden’s coronavirus advisor, Zeke Emanuel, told CNBC that everyone should “take a very big breath, slow down, and stop panicking and being hysterical” and that the virus would “go down as spring comes up,” a reality that never happened.
  5. On February 6, another Biden coronavirus advisor, Irwin Redlener, claimed that a global pandemic was “not very likely” and that the chances of “getting a severe, potentially lethal form of the Wuhan virus is negligible,” grossly wrong opinions.
  6. NYC’s health commissioner, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, tried to reassure NYC commuters, in early February, that “this is not something that you’re going to contract in the subway or on the bus,” an incorrect assertion that de Blasio repeated several times in March.
  7. Kain came back with more wrong predictions on February 11 when he doubted that the virus would become “a serious epidemic,” two days later he stated confidently, and incorrectly, that “The evidence suggests it’s probably not that [an epidemic],” and two days later he was also wrong when he said that “We don’t have a COVID-19 epidemic in the US but we are starting to see a fear epidemic.”
  8. Emanuel popped up again on February 20 when he incorrectly stated the country was overreacting and that “warm weather is going to come and, just like the flu, the corona virus is going to go down.”
  9. On February 24, Nancy Pelosi told tourists in San Francisco to “come down to Chinatown.”
  10. Kain supported Pelosi’s invitation three days later when he said people should not be worried by “needless fears about coronavirus” and that everyone “should tonight go down to Chinatown in their city and buy dinner or go shopping.”
  11. On February 29 Emanuel told CNN that “running out and getting a mask is not going to help.”
  12. On March 2, Cuomo nonchalantly stated that “So, when you’re saying, what happened in other countries versus what happened here, we don’t even think it’s going to be as bad as it was in other countries.”
  13. On March 12, Biden advisor Lisa Monaco bitched about Trump’s Europe travel ban, a continent where the virus was raging.
  14. Biden kept holding election rallies without distancing or masks up until March 9.
  15. In early March, de Blasio told his city residents to go out to city bars and restaurants since the virus is not spread by food and drink, an assertion that may be the worst assumption ever regarding the virus.
  16. On March 5, de Blasio reassured the city that there was no need to panic and `”We'll tell you the second we think you should change your behavior”
  17. By mid March most of the country were doing lockdowns but New York was late to that party: “New York City as a whole was late in social measures,” said Isaac B. Weisfuse, a former New York City deputy health commissioner. “Any after-action review of the pandemic in New York City will focus on that issue. It has become the major issue in the transmission of the virus.”
  18. On March 31, Cuomo admitted: “I am tired of being behind this virus. We’ve been playing catch-up. You don’t win playing catch-up.”

And yet, Cuomo thinks that Trump caused the virus. Trump stopped travelers from high infection areas from entering this country and possibly bringing the virus with them but he caused the virus. Trump never told people to go dine and shop in Chinatown but he caused the virus. Trump never told people to go out to bars and restaurants because the virus does not spread by food and drink but he caused the virus. Trump did not work in the Chinese lab that created and lost control of the virus but he caused the virus. Trump never told people to continue to travel on the subway but he caused the virus.

Trump did not do everything perfectly. Testing was lagging. Virus prevention supplies were initially in short demand. But to say Trump caused the virus after all of the bad information, advice, and actions taken by China, Cuomo, de Blasio, Biden advisors, Biden, Pelosi, etc. is certainly a gross denial of reality.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:





Wednesday, September 9, 2020

September, 2020, Part 5, Political Class Insanity: Businesses Leaving Chicago, Gun Control Fails Again In California, and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

1) We have recently and often discussed the dire situation that Chicago is in from a quality of life perspective. For years it had led the country in the total number of murders every year but that violence has jumped up this year. In addition, the city has been subjected to some vicious and violent riots that has left many businesses looted, burned down, or robbed.

And apparently Chicago business owners have had enough of the ineptness of the political class to provide a basic, basic government service: protect the lives and property of the city's citizens. The city’s business and property management companies have told the mayor, Lori Lightfoot, that unless she and the city take greater control of the violence and crime they may leave the city behind and take their businesses, and jobs, elsewhere. 

One single night of recent riots and looting cost Chicago business owners $60 million in damages and losses. One night. All because of a wild and totally false rumor about police violence that did not happen. And when businesses leave an area, jobs leave an area, shopping options leave an area and those residents left behind suffer a severe decline in the quality of life. All because the local political class could not provide a basic government service. 

2) New York City has been not too far behind Chicago when it comes to an escalation in crime and violence, a reality we discussed a lot recently. But the mayor, Bill de Blasio, continues to either live in denial or is trying to dress up a pig when it comes to his failure as mayor. 

After the recent Labor Day weekend, de Blasio reached the following conclusion, that the city had an “overwhelmingly peaceful weekend.” But in the real world, not the mayor’s bubble world, this was what was happening around town:
  • A six year old boy got shot in the leg.
  • His mother also got shot at a city Caribbean holiday street party in Brooklyn.
  • Almost two dozen other people got shot over the three day weekend.
  • Another city resident was shot while out walking his dogs with news reports saying that “It’s unclear who attacked him or what the motive was.”
  • In the first eight months of 2020, NYC shootings are up 87% compared to the same time period last year so even if the mayor was right, which he wasn’t, about a peaceful Labor Day weekend, the total year’s violence is still way up.
Clueless or a liar, tough tell what de Blasio is but neither is a trait you want in a politician in charge of the biggest city in the country.

3) We have also had a lot of discussion recently about how laws, rules, and edicts, especially during the coronavirus crisis and lockdowns, often do not seem to apply to the politicians who are making those laws, rules, edicts and lockdowns. These people live by the code, “do as I say, not as I do.” Consider the recent examples of such pompousness:
  • The Chicago mayor made her hair salon open so she could have her hair styled even though she prohibited every other hair salon and resident in the city from doing the same thing.
  • The Beaumont, Texas mayor made her nail salon open so she could have her nails done even though she prohibited every other nail salon and resident in the city from doing the same thing.
  • De Blasio in NYC made his gym open up only for him to get some exercise even though he had prohibited every other gym and resident in the city from doing the same thing.
  • The governor’s husband in Michigan tried to get his marina to put his boat in the water so he could use it over the Memorial Day weekend even though his wife prohibited every other boater and resident in the state from doing the same thing.
  • Nancy Pelosi made her salon open so she could get her hair styled in San Francisco even though every other hair salon and resident in the city was not allowed to do the same thing.
You get the idea, politicians think of themselves as royalty and that common laws and restrictions should not get in the way of their lives. And that snobbery also applies to the mayor of Philadelphia:
  • Mayor Jim Kenney had made sure that his Philadelphia residents could not go out and dine inside a city restaurant as part of the plan to defeat the virus.
  • But that did not stop him from driving across the state line into Maryland where he enjoyed a dinner out at an out of state restaurant.
  • He did apologize for doing so but that hardly makes up for his “do as I say, not as I do” behavior.
  • I am pretty sure that most of the people he rules over did not have the means or wealth to travel out of state to enjoy dinner out.
I hope he enjoyed what others in his city yearn for but he has prohibited for so long.

4) One last observation on politicians for today. A lot of liberal and Democrats in this country hate the Second Amendment. I am sure if they had their way, which they constantly try to get, they would confiscate every gun that every law abiding American has in their possession that are used only for sport or protection.

The most liberal state in the country is probably California and that is probably the state with the most restrictive gun laws in the country. But that did not stop a mass shooting recently in that state:
  • It seems that some state residents were operating an illegal marijuana growing operation.
  • And it seems that someone did not agree with that operation.
  • You see, someone came by and shot to death seven people associated with that illegal marijuana growing operation.
  • When police arrived at the shooting scene, they found a wounded woman who was transported to a hospital but who ended up dead.
  • A search of the property found six other dead bodies who were shot to death.
So years after restricting gun sales, restricting magazine sizes, making more and more difficult to buy a gun in the state, there are still bad, evil people who have guns in their possession. Making that old saying even more true: “if having a gun was a crime then only criminals would have guns.” Ask the seven dead people who died violently by gunshots, pretty sure they would agree that gun control as practiced by the American political class has been a failure.

So, another example of how gun control only allows criminals to have guns, a big city mayor scoffs at his own rules, de Blasio continues to be clueless, and Chicago business owners have had enough of the violence, looting and lack of law and order caused by a very ineffective set of city politicians.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at: